Stick Out Your Tongue
by lunchables
Summary: Rachel needs to make sure my tongue is clean before she can kiss me.


When Rachel clamped her tiny little fists in a suffocating knot around the collar of my shirt, I only blatantly stared with these really big, wide eyes. She was excited beyond comprehension, and it was always startling all the way to the very tips of my toes when she got like this; a rampage driving her to the smoking pits of hell until she achieved _whatever_ it is that she was after. Whether it was information or a physical act, I guess it depended on her mood of the day. Did she want to act like a grown-up, or was she in search for something to satisfy her childish desires?

I peeled my pink shirt from her clutches and shifted uncomfortably inside my sticky clothes. The sun was pulsating and panting down my neck with my frilly blond hair plastered across the damp skin. "What?" I asked, because my incredulous look wasn't enough to make her say anything.

Twelve-year-old Rachel Berry's eyes were wildly aflame with anticipation, and she didn't seem at all bothered by the way I untangled herself from my best friend (maybe only friend; Middle school sucks). Rachel was still staring at me with these googly eyes like she was submerged into an alacritous search for the answer in my expression before inquiring about it directly.

"Have you ever kissed a girl?" she blurted. But it was more like a demand and I felt like I was in one of those big official courtrooms on crime shows with a judge and stuff.

I tucked my lips in between my teeth and frowned, before shaking my head obviously. "No. Girls are supposed to only kiss boys, aren't they?" That's what I thought, anyway. All the movies were about a boy and a girl, and Mom always talked about watching out for the cute boys (those were the worst, she said, but also the best). She never talked about cute girls because I don't think I was supposed to even consider a girl cute. I did, sometimes, but it was weird.

"My daddy kisses my dad and it's fine," Rachel reasoned, _hmphing_ as she crossed her arms over her flat chest. Well, I didn't mean to make her mad. It's just what everyone told me. Boys were different. I wasn't a boy, so Mom didn't talk about that either, but I really, really like Rachel's dads (two is always better than one anyway, right?). So it was okay. I think, anyway. I wasn't sure what made it not okay in the first place.

"That's different."

"How?"

"Because they're _boys_." I rolled my eyes and dropped to the grass when the hostile glint vanished from Rachel's eyes. I was plucking the hair from the earth, twisting and looping the greens around my thumb as I looked expectantly up at Rachel. I patted at the ground in my subtle way of letting her know this wasn't something to argue about or anything. I was just kind of unsure about stuff like this (Rachel was almost always smarter, and I was okay with that because I almost always beat her at soccer). Besides, I had a lot of opinions that crossed over hers, so I think she was content enough with debates over things that didn't really have a right answer.

"And we're girls," Rachel concluded, nodding like I was already telling her something she knew. Which I was, but the content was different. I noticed she said "_we"_ on the topic of girl's kissing but I didn't ask. "Why should it be different?"

I shrugged helplessly, my eyebrows crooked upward and smudging wrinkles through my forehead. "I don't know! What does it matter?"

Rachel huffed, rolling her eyes before settling down on her back. The base of her neck came to relax along my thigh as she took turns between watching the few clouds painted and glittered across the sky and my rosy face. "Girls should have as many options for a partner as boys do. And if a boy can pick a boy, why can't I pick a girl?"

I dug my eyebrows deep down the bridge of my nose. "Do you _want _to pick a girl?" I asked uncertainly. I didn't really get this whole thing. I mean, it seemed fine, but it didn't. Like one was a made-up story we played out when we were bored in the fields of Lima while the other was a blazing reality. I think it's obvious which is which.

Rachel never answered my question.

"I saw Brittany and Santana kissing." Her voice was so dry and even compared to my bolting eyes and lunging throat.

"_Kissing?!_" I screeched, sitting up further and lolling Rachel's head around in my lap. She grumbled and shifted positions, rolling over on her stomach.

She nodded. "Uh-huh."

"What did you do?"

Rachel's shoulders shrugged again. "I said hi and they stopped and Brittany said hi. Santana didn't say anything and so I didn't say anything."

I looped my elbows around my knees, my spine slumped. I continued to tug at the frail grass and dirt was under my fingernails. "Weird."

"Why is it weird?" she challenged.

I shrugged. "It just is."

"Because we're _girls_?"

She said we again and that is the part that made me frown, but she got the wrong idea and hastily went on. "So what? They looked happy. Girls can be happy with boys, and boys can be happy with boys. And now I have evidence girls can be happy with girls. So what else matters?"

She said something next about becoming president and sharing this epiphany with the world but I didn't respond to it.

I was quiet for a while and she was watching my hands. "I never said it was bad, Rach."

"Okay."

I wanted her to say more because I couldn't stop thinking about kissing her now.

"So, are you like, a lesbian?" I asked instead. I grew up feeling like the word was a swear, something to avoid, but just like that it was like saying anything else; house, poster, flag, field. It was _whatever_.

Rachel's cheeks flushed a beet, stunning red as her neck whiplashed up. I was already holding my hands up in innocence when she started spewing "I am most certainly _not_. Not that it'd matter if I was. Because like the evidence says, it's okay." She nodded triumphantly and that was that. Or I thought it was. "Are you?"

I didn't like my answer. "Well... what exactly _makes_ a lesbian?" Was it just the curiosity tingling in my jaw of wondering what it would be like to kiss Rachel? Was it the desire to do so? Or would it have to be the act of it? What if I did it to a boy too? Did that make the lesbian go away?

Rachel pondered over it deeply, and I thought she was taking too long.

"I dunno. Kissing a girl and, liking it I guess."

"What if you don't do it again?"

Again, she shrugged and I didn't know what to say.

"Have _you_ ever kissed a girl?" I asked, redirecting the conversation back to the original turning point.

She shook her head blankly, and I expected a speech but I didn't get one. "Do you want to?" I continued.

She was blushing again, but not as bad as before. "I-I mean, I'd like to try but... for the sake of the experience."

I wanted to kiss Rachel, to just kiss her now. I mean, for the experience of kissing Rachel Berry, so I guess I agreed with her. But Rachel was speaking more generally.

"Do you want to?"

I paused and scratched behind my ear. "Sort of."

"What do you mean sort of?"

"I don't know."

"Do you want me to kiss you?" she blurted and I think I was burning harder than she had both times before combined. How did I tell her yes? Did I just... say yes?

I think she took it as a yes because she sat up, crawling to her knees. I fell back onto my butt, my lanky legs sprawled out as she moved between them. For once, she leaned taller than me and I only stared up at her.

"Stick your tongue out, first."

I'm pretty sure that's not how you kiss someone. In the movies they kind of just... put their lips together and moved them like they were drinking from a cup.

"Stick it out!" she demanded, her voice pitching into a high crack.

"Why?"

"Well I'm not going to kiss you if your tongue isn't clean."

"What's my tongue got to do with kissing?"

"It's in your mouth, Quinn, and I'm kissing your _mouth_. Besides, I heard Santana once say something about using tongue in kisses so I guess they do something."

"You're really weird," I remarked, my hands digging into the dirt behind me as I held myself up. But I prodded my tongue out through my chapped lips anyway, looking up at her. She promptly bent over, eyes squinted as she stared at my tongue. It felt really ridiculous, especially when she grabbed it with her hands and I gagged when she pulled to hard before tugging it back in my jaw. "That hurt!" I exclaimed sorely, my voice awkwardly muffled as I smudged at my mouth.

"Don't be a baby."

When she didn't do anything else, I asked "Well?"

"Well _what_?"

"Is my tongue clean?"

"Oh. Yes it's fine."

"So are you going to kiss me or not?" I was growing impatient, and she could hear it in my voice because she smirked this funny smirk I'd never seen her smirk before. I'd grow to love it and recognize it and simply know it like the back of my hand, but right then, it was foreign and I found myself blushing.

"I think you're cute," I squeaked, unsure what else to say. It's true. She was really cute and I was still blushing.

And when she kissed me, she tasted like sugar and candy and my chapstick and now I understood why my lips were so chapped and where my lip balm had gone.

* * *

"Stick out your tongue," Rachel ordered beside me.

I turned from the TV to stare at her.

We hadn't kissed in four years, and we didn't talk about it. Some unspoken agreement, however, fell between us about dating other people like a feebly thin veil. When I went out with Finn in freshman year and I choked on his tongue, Rachel and I got into a fight about nothing and I never called him back. She made me brush my teeth for hours that night. When she hooked up with Puck I didn't speak to her for an entire week until she told me it was over with remorseful eyes and a longing in her outstretched hands. We held hands a lot, actually. Mostly in private, but once or twice at school when we felt really comfortable and relaxed. We didn't go on dates, because we liked staying in better, watching movies, and ordering take out. Sometimes, though, we walked to the library together, leaning into one another's shoulders as a howling wind tried to tear us apart. We sometimes walked the two miles to the gas station while she scolded me about all the candy I'd buy and she'd argue about animal cruelty to the cashier when they offered her baby lamb chops. It was really adorable, and I told her so a couple times and she'd blush and shove my hip. When I swayed back like a pendulum into her, she wouldn't pull away and it'd be us against the wind again.

We took turns a lot. Paying for the food, who's library card we used, who provided the movie and who tipped the pizza boy (it always had to be generous, after Rachel's requests for vegan pizza). We took turns a lot and it was a habit and it was all we really did.

But now, we were watching the second Iron Man movie because Rachel had never seen it and I was trying to convince her Robert Downey Jr. was a god.

She preferred Pepper over Tony ans giggled a lot while watching it.

"What?" My gaze flocked over her eyes and I still could only stare.

She waved her hands impatiently, shooting a pointed look down to my shut mouth. After licking my lips, satisfied with the soft texture peaking in them, I held my tongue out. But it was more a slacked jaw and my tongue barely left my mouth.

Rachel watched for a moment, tilting her head and shimmying lower to get a better look. She pursed her lips, eyes mildly narrowed and my heart was thudding. Her face was so close, but I knew she'd never let me kiss her if my tongue wasn't clean. Since that summer day in the fields with her, I'd made it a habit to brush my tongue every day, even if she'd been sated enough at the time.

The anticipation was too much and I just wanted to kiss her and she kept staring until... she grunted and looked back at the TV, settling back against the headboard of my bed.

That was it?

"What?" I echoed again, sitting forward to gaze stupefyingly at her. I knew my disappointment was gleaming like the north star and she smirked that sultry smirk.

"What?" she mocked.

"I... Does my breath smell?" I cupped a hand over my mouth and breathed heavily into it, sniffing.

She shook her head and grinned so damn innocently. "No, it's very nice Quinn."

"Then what's-"

I cut myself off, but I guess her raised eyebrow provoked it. She kissed me first.

We like to take turns.

And before she could even think about stopping me and continuing to expand on the topic of denta hygiene and how mine was poor, I dipped forward and kissed her. It wasn't as sugary sweet from licorice like the memory carved into my skull, but it was sweet and beautiful in its own way. The way her lips flowed against mine and she smoothly held my face, arching her length into me... it was expertly and perfected from only pure imagination of that exact kiss. My hands were on her hips, cupping the waist Rachel would declare was sagging with lovehandles when she was a little tipsy. Until I'd grab at them and she'd vanish from my grasp and I'd tell her if they were so big, I'd have more to hold on to and she'd never get away. When she's drunk, it works and it makes sense.

But now I'm holding them because I don't want her to stop kissing me back and I'm trying to pull her away from Iron Man.

The taste of her wet lips slipping and fumbling _with_ (not on) mine is still dizzying and intoxicating and I don't really know how to breathe. She fits into me in the way she curves and settles between my legs as I straddle over her and let her draw those tedious fingers through my hair. My forearms wind around her waist, tightening her abdomen against my own and she giggles and I giggle and I can feel her smirk.

I know that smirk inside and out now, I realize, as flick my tongue agaisnt it and I really think she understands.

"I love your clean tongue," she murmurs into my puffy lips at some point, and I know she doesn't mean it sexually. I know she means she loves kissing me and she loves that I understand her twisted thoughts.

And I never really thought sticking my tongue out would be my favorite thing for her to ask me to do.


End file.
